Police: Video has possible SUV bomber in NYC alley

by Tom Hays and Deepti Hajela - May. 3, 2010 12:00 AMAssociated Press

NEW YORK - Police investigating a terror attack that could have set off a deadly fireball in Times Square focused Sunday on finding a man who was videotaped shedding his shirt near the SUV where the bomb was found.

Police said the gasoline-and-propane bomb was crude but could have sprayed shrapnel and metal parts with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows on one of America's busiest streets, full of Broadway theaters and restaurants on a Saturday night.

More than 100 pounds of fertilizer rigged with wires and fireworks were found with the bomb, but police said it was not the ammonium nitrate grade that can explode.

The surveillance video shows an unidentified White man in his 40s slipping down an alley and taking off a shirt, revealing another underneath. In the same clip, he's seen looking back in the direction of the smoking vehicle and furtively putting the first shirt in a bag, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The homemade bomb was made with ordinary items including three barbecue-grill-sized propane tanks, two 5-gallon gasoline containers, store-bought fireworks and cheap alarm clocks attached to wires.

"The intent of whoever did this (was) to cause mayhem, create casualties," Kelly said.

Authorities didn't know how deadly the bomb could have been, how it failed or who was responsible.

The bomb at Times Square, one of the flashiest and best-known places on Earth, was found at the height of dinner hour before theatergoers headed to Saturday night shows.

Timers were connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to set the gas cans and propane afire, Kelly said.

He said the bomb "looks like it would have caused a significant fireball" had it fully detonated. He said the vehicle would have been "cut in half" by an explosion and people nearby could have been sprayed by shrapnel and killed.

Police had feared that another component - a metal rifle cabinet packed with more than 100 pounds of a fertilizer-like substance and rigged with wires and more fireworks - could have made the device even more devastating. Test results late Sunday showed that it was indeed fertilizer - but not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertilizer used in previous terror attacks, police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The city's busiest streets, choked with taxis and people on one of the first summer-like days of the year, were shut down for 10 hours, unnerving thousands of tourists attending Broadway shows, museums and other city sights. Detectives took the stage at the end of some shows to announce to theatergoers that they were looking for witnesses in a bombing attempt.

A Pakistani Taliban group claimed responsibility for the failed attack in a 1-minute video. Kelly, however, said police have no evidence to support the claims and noted that the same group had falsely taken credit for previous attacks on U.S. soil. The commissioner also cast doubt on an e-mail to a news outlet claiming responsibility.

The New York Police Department and FBI were also examining "hundreds of hours" of security videotape from around Times Square, Kelly said.

Police released a photo of the SUV, a dark-colored Nissan Pathfinder, as it crossed an intersection at 6:28 p.m. Saturday. A vendor pointed the SUV out to an officer about 2 minutes later.

Police said they had identified the registered owner of the Pathfinder, but hadn't spoken to him yet. The license plate found on the vehicle did not belong to the SUV; police said it came from a car found in a repair shop in Connecticut.